Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Renew your service or we’ll trash your credit score, Spectrum tells ex-customer

latimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 51 posts

Re: Renew your service or we’ll trash your credit score, Spectrum tells ex-customer

#31

Post by irjustin »

encryptluks2 wrote: post #29
irjustin wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, if the customer owed something/missed a payment, then this letter makes sense. This customer didn't owe anything, so clearly this letter wasn't intended for them, but got it by an error. I'm all for pitchforking Comcast and other giants who have terrible business practices, but this article seems like it's trying to drum up angst when this can clearly be explained by a mistake. If I had bad debt and an option…

This type of letter doesn't make sense no matter what, and if people receive something like this they should immediately file a complaint with the FTC for FCRA violations.

I'll need help understanding why this letter doesn't make sense if I have bad debt (can agree it doesn't with the current article).

and which FCRA violation specifically? Basic read of FCRA... I don't see one.

Re: Renew your service or we’ll trash your credit score, Spectrum tells ex-customer

#32

Post by mebr »

irjustin wrote: post #23
wolpoli wrote: post #20

It sounds someone crafted a letter for people who own balance and made a mistake when they queried the CRM for a list of customers. I am not convinced that it was meant to be an actual threat to trash the recipient's credit score.

Agreed, if the customer owed something/missed a payment, then this letter makes sense. This customer didn't owe anything, so clearly this letter wasn't intended for them, but got it by an error. I'm all for pitchforking Comcast and other giants who have terrible business practices, but this article seems like it's trying to drum up angst when this can clearly be explained by a mistake. If I had bad debt and an option…

It would be reasonable to include in the letter how much the debt is and the date of that perhaps. And with good intentions, an alternative way of resolving the issue. This letter is not friendly. I get letters with the same spirit and those bug me a lot.

Re: Renew your service or we’ll trash your credit score, Spectrum tells ex-customer

#34

Post by vegetablepotpie »

standardUser wrote: post #18
jjoonathan wrote: post #2

It's outrageous that companies in the modern day and age can just elect to make cancellation difficult or impossible and keep taking money from you.

It is outrageous, but the blame doesn't lie with companies doing precisely what companies are intended to due, the fault lies solely with politicians who reliably fail to put their voters interest above that of their donors.

Companies are intended to extort money from former customers based on real and implied threats? What is the claim here? Are you saying for profit companies are inherently parasitic and politicians need to pass specific regulations to prevent every instance of bad corporate behavior? Or is it that politicians have created systems that makes companies acting antisocially inevitable? Or is it that companies have made adequate enough campaign contributions to have politicians look the other way?

Re: Renew your service or we’ll trash your credit score, Spectrum tells ex-customer

#35

Post by jjoonathan »

Supermancho wrote: post #4
jjoonathan wrote: post #2

It's outrageous that companies in the modern day and age can just elect to make cancellation difficult or impossible and keep taking money from you.

> It's outrageous that companies in the modern day and age can just elect to make cancellation difficult or impossible and keep taking money from yo I'm not sure you read the story. A small claims judge would make short work of that situation wherein they will inform Spectrum that they do not want this to go to jury. However, this story is about a guy getting a resubscription extortion letter in light of a non-existe…

I'm not sure you're familiar with how the "you can't cancel" trick works.

The situation in TFA is what happens if you try to escalate an ignored cancellation request by stopping payment. The company graciously extends debt to cover the service that you surely didn't intend to cancel, and when your balance -- augmented by late fees, of course -- has grown to be worth their while, they try to collect.

Variations on this theme exist. Sometimes you take a less than completely active role in the sign-up process and only learn about it on collection. Sometimes you "successfully" cancel and they just fail to process it. The common theme here is ongoing transactions for ongoing service (that isn't actually delivered) in the absence of ongoing consent. It's dysfunctional that we allow this in any form, regardless of whether the form in TFA is slightly less dysfunctional or slightly more dysfunctional than the most common form, which is what I structured my comment around.

If subscription services had to register with your credit card, credit reporting agencies, or some authority that gave you a (complete!) list and a cancel button, all of these problems would go away, along with the awful business models that they enable.

Re: Renew your service or we’ll trash your credit score, Spectrum tells ex-customer

#36

Post by Johnny555 »

Animats wrote: post #22

That's extortion. Contact a lawyer.

But only if you have access to a free lawyer, because the most likely outcome is that they'll make the same claim they already made -- that the letter was meant to be sent to customers that had outstanding billing issues. And I don't think it's illegal for the company to promise debt forgiveness to customers that re-join.

He said letters like the one Schklair received are sent to numerous former customers who may have billing issues. The letters are intended to help indebted people find their way back into the financial light, he said.

Re: Renew your service or we’ll trash your credit score, Spectrum tells ex-customer

#37

Post by vegetablepotpie »

I don’t know about Spectrum, but that news page was pretty ”extractive”. When trying to copy/paste from iPhone, it was all but inevitable to click an ad. When I tried to highlight a word, the whole page would highlight. When I tried to click off to deselect, it would register as a click to an external advertisers page.

I’d like to apply Hanlon’s razor, but it feels too coincidental that someone making money from this hasn’t fixed it.

Re: Renew your service or we’ll trash your credit score, Spectrum tells ex-customer

#38

Post by not2b »

irjustin wrote: post #31
encryptluks2 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This type of letter doesn't make sense no matter what, and if people receive something like this they should immediately file a complaint with the FTC for FCRA violations.

I'll need help understanding why this letter doesn't make sense if I have bad debt (can agree it doesn't with the current article). and which FCRA violation specifically? Basic read of FCRA... I don't see one.

If the person owes money the letter should describe how much is owed and what it is owed for.

Re: Renew your service or we’ll trash your credit score, Spectrum tells ex-customer

#39

Post by irjustin »

not2b wrote: post #38
irjustin wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll need help understanding why this letter doesn't make sense if I have bad debt (can agree it doesn't with the current article). and which FCRA violation specifically? Basic read of FCRA... I don't see one.

If the person owes money the letter should describe how much is owed and what it is owed for.

Please link a source for this one. Look, this is a great practice for sure, but we're in the realm of legal now.

I looked briefly[0] and couldn't find anything that explicitly that's what you need to do when describing options.

The only requirement that I can see they are *required* to do:

> furnishes negative information to such an agency regarding credit extended to a customer, the financial institution shall provide a notice of such furnishing of negative information, in writing, to the customer.

And it needs to be 30 days. As far as I can tell, this is in good standing FCRA wise.

https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/pdf-0111-fair-credit-r...

Re: Renew your service or we’ll trash your credit score, Spectrum tells ex-customer

#40

Post by dreamcompiler »

So this is what it's come to: The only sure way to cancel cable service is to have your lawyer send them a certified letter giving notice that you're breaking the contract and you will not be responsible for future debts. That way if they try any funny business later you can take them to court and have a pretty good chance of victory. (IANAL)
Post reply on HN